WHITE GLOSS KITCHEN - BUT AM SLACK AT CLEANING - YES OR NO??

[hippipotami]

Am hoping to have a new kitchen in the summer, and have chosed a white gloss one. However, have two young children, a dog, a cat and a messy husband, as well as a large mudpit of a garden and access to the garden (and back in!!) is only through the kitchen.

I am not overly on top of the whole housekeeping thing - I don't clean my kitchen untill it has reached the 'Oh my word the kitchen is a mess' stage.

Sooo, white gloss kitchen - am I certifiably insane planning this??

I have a Victorian terrace. I was traumatised (no exageration spent 7 hours in Ikea on Saturday).

Smooth streamlined or shabby chic?? In wood sympathy with rest of the house or nice shiny white old /new mixure?

If helps I went for Abstrakt white units and beech worksurface. Rest of house white cream and wooden floors etc.

Don't know if I've made the wrong choice or not until fitted.

Glad to hear others have the same dilemmas though.

I am on a strict diet - and ended up with a giant size meatballs from Ikea - pure stress. I could have cried with the choice.

busy2busy, are you my long lost twin? Your house sounds identical to ours, and your kitchen choice is exactly what we chose.

Still not sure if Abstrakt is too modern.

The issue I have with shaker style doors is that they are not 'flush' iyswim, they have that recessed panel, so there is a dust and dirt trapping ledge. Our current kitchen has some white glass doors with those ledges and it has gone grey over the years, and even bleach won't touch it...

Aaaarrrgggghhhh, too much choice......

Busy2busy, are Ikea fitting your kitchen or are you doing it yourselves??

Had white gloss with oak w-top in our old house, it was lovely and easy to wipe down. I'm not house-wifey at all and I had no problem with it looking dirty.

Agree with booze, we had a white gloss kitchen with solid oak worktops and it looks fantastic. I hate housework - remember- any type of ledges on doors collect dust, my doors collect nothing except compliments!

ok
we're also in victorian terrace with wooden floors and mostly white walls, Abstract doesn't look too modern, it's lovely and cool
enjoy your new kitchen!!

Cool, I might just have to change my name to booze!!

Hp -

My friend has the abstrakt and wood in an older house and it looks good.

The compromise on the 'does is it look too modern?' question I went for one of those stainless steel chimney extractors - to break things up a bit - rather than one long ulta modern row of cabinets (which I would have gone for in a modern house).

I also had the dilemma of built in oven or standalone range type. Did stand alone in the end as I like them - but think a built in would look more stream lined. Unlimited budget I would have had a four ringed halogen. But then you need the new plans and £1000 for the hob.

I have arranged my own chippie, plumber etc as having a bit of plumbing work done at the same time. I was a bit aghast at the Ikea price for installation - especially when I am going to just put everything back in the same place as the MFI stuff. (Except the chippie will faint - Ikea units don't have any room for pipes at the back - all old houses have pipes. Perhaps they don't in Sweden??).

Tiles are the next dilemma. White rectangle ones done in a brick fashion (too men's victorian toilet?). Or some from Homebase (Hoxton) which are very rectangular - and placed in vertical rows??

I hate all this choice - then having too live with it. In some ways it is easier to inherit a kitchen - and pass the blame onto someone else. :-(

In some ways I don't care about the cleaning - just what does it look like?

Sometimes old and modern juxtabposed can look fantastic - think contemporary glass conservatory on Victorian house. In other instances it can just look badly thought out. Sooo hard. I did consider the wooden Ikea kitchen, but I did worry too much wood in house anyway and might be overdose. Although looked in the displays.

New pans not plans! Halogen needs special pans!!

I have a white gloss kitchen. I don't find it a problem, but then at 6.52, having cooked meatballs, DS having made mud pies in the garden, and with a baby, it is looking pretty clean [smug emoticon]. (M. Platypus makes quick exit before anybody discovers any of the non-white gloss related kitchen disasters that have happened today...)

we have white high gloss kitchen from ikea, v easy to clean as shiny so all i do is wipe it down with a spray of anti-bac cleaner and kitchen roll when i do the high chair. takes seconds and looks new. we have dog and 17 month old and are a high grub household.

floors, now that's a different matter...

busy2busy we had same dilema about kitchen in victorian house so asked architect doing renovation and he said go for classic white high gloss every time. he was right i think. the wood might date. as for tiles, his advice was to go for white square but larger than your average tile and flat. so looks v smart and a bit different and thought out but not at all shouty or liable to date. we did this in bathroom and again, he was right. they're not that easy to find and i don't recall dimensions... kitchen is stainless steel worktop and splashback purpose built, bloody expensive (architect good on design lousy on advising how much things would cost, it was more than double what he thought but does look fab).

busy2busy - instead of tiles have you considered using the stainless steel or glass panels you can get at Ikea? Glass splashbacks are very "now" apparently!

I would have loved a stainless steel worktop, but suspected it would be too expensive ECTALM. Maybe next time!

The glass splash backs looked lovely. But what about my three double socked so conviently placed. I did wonder where you plug the kettle in.

Do you know if you can cut holes in them?. The dozy assistant didn't know.

Thats electric sockets not socks!!

Don't know the answer to that - I am having splashbacks along one wall only (where the hob will be) and the sockets will be on the other walls. Would be tricky to cut a hole in the glass I think. Could you move the sockets to be above the splashback?

ECTALM - I have had the bathroom done at the same time - expensive but was cheaper overall to get everything done at once.

Got some larger white tiles - about 30cm x 40cm - and they look fantastic.

I had them done brick fashion that they really do look great. Not too expensive either Homebase sale (I think they are supposed to go the otheway around) but - they look good.

I work in IT - IT architects never know the costs of anything either. Always need reining in and bringing back to ground!!

Decoglaze is made to order with holes cut out for sockets etc, is that what you're talking about?

I have white gloss - looks just fine and the gloss bit means things wipe off easily. I rely on a quick wipe of the grubby looking bits once a week, thats about it.

Brilliant - I think I will stick with the white gloss kitchen. Don't mind a quick wipe over every evening if that is all it takes. Definately don't want doors with ledges etc as they are just too fiddely to clean.

Will also go for BIG stainless handles. At the moment we have tiny knobs and all around them the doors are mucky (and tricky to clean)

Will go for oak worktop I think, as we have an oak dining table.

Now, what to put on the floor? The rest of the house is pine floorboards, but don't want to put that in the kitchen. Don't like laminate in an older property, and lino does not seem to last in this house.

Large cream floortiles? (to tie in with the cream walls?)

The house I work in has a white gloss kitchen with large stainless steel handles, oak worktop & painted white wooden floor...no more cleaning than your average kitchen.

The worst kitchen I ever came across was red gloss with black marble worktop, nightmare!

Hi Hipp.

I too loath laminate (in any situation) (sorry any laminate fans) - but looks particularly odd next to real wood.

I am thinking dark grey slate (or the cheaper version) tiles on the floor. Contrast nicely with the white.

Don't want to put you off but I had cream in the bathroom. Vile always looked dirty. Even though they weren't. Maybe it was because they had a slightly pitted surfact.

If cream must be shiny - back to cleaning thing again. Function over form -is that the phrase?

Seccondly - do you think you can wax / oil the beech Ikea work surfaces slightly darker.

Reason I ask - in the beech you can get a breakfast bar - not that I want a breakfast bar but as it is wider the chippie will be able to fit the worksurface better to under the window (cut it to shape sort of thing). They don't have this option in the oak.

Now - dining table and other things are oak. Do you think a bit of oil with stain might darken it. Haven't ordered the worksurfaces yet (well I have but gone off the dark grey / black and they are going back).

Need to go back for more Ikea hell and compare work surface colours.

Agghhhh.

i'd say go for it...

i have black and white gloss cupboard doors.
when the sun shimes brightly its easy to see fingerprints and smears so soooo easy to wipe off as opposed to other material with grooves that you know you'd really like to scrub and pick out the revolting bits with a knife, but don't have the time and have better things to do if you had!!!

i love the quick wipe and go policy because I'm worth it!!